Weihenstephaner (thing)

Weihenstephan is the official brewery of Bavaria. Their records show a possibly forged document granting the benedictinemonastery of Weihenstephan in Freising the right to brew beer in 1040. Parts of the building that is supposed to have been their first brewery have been dated even earlier than that. The monastery itself was founded in 725 by St. Korbinian, and their records also show a local hops field that was required to tithe ten percent of their crop in 768. Their claim is not to be the oldest location of a brewery, but the world's oldest continuous brewery. Their chemists are connected to Munich's technical university, as part of a department that deals with the technology of breweries, dairies, and other issues of food production. With just 85 permanent staff members, they produce about 200,000 hectoliters of beer every year. They also used to be connected to the state-run dairy of the same name, which was sold to a larger private concern, Müller Milch, in 1999.